Red
by wishinonastar
Summary: Red had always been their colour; from red dresses, to red doors and red feathers. But he would give anything for her not to be wearing red right now. ONESHOT.


_Okay so new oneshot everybody! Ummm, yeah so new chapter of RLUS is written, but i need to figure out stuff with my beta._

_But i hope you enjoy this!_

Red.

_Red had always been their colour; from red dresses, to red doors and red feathers. But he would give anything for her not to be wearing red right now._

He had always been partial to the rocket red dress that she had worn when he attended his very first "party".

Not that he had been wanting to rip it off her or anything. At the time, he had been chasing after her blonde haired best friend. All he had thought about her that night was that she was a bitch, and looked hot.

But she had come to mean so much more than that to him. And they had become so much more. They were the 'red' couple; or at least he saw it that way. She used to giggle whenever he mentioned it. But he thought it was true; from their passionate fights to their amazing sex, everything was just, red. Bright and colourful and dangerous.

Although he had gone and screwed all of that up; and her red hot tears had spilled over his naïve and inexperienced heart.

He had kept her red lipstick throughout all the time that they were broken up. Until this morning in fact. Maybe it was stupid, but something as normal as that he could keep looking at whenever he started to miss her. Or continued to miss her; because it never really ended, therefore it couldn't start again.

It probably didn't help that he used to spend hours looking through his Brooke box, which over the years had only gotten bigger.

Then, it had contained a single red feather. During that period, sometimes he had thought he was so close to her reaching out to him. And at others, she had seemed further away from him than anyone else.

And then just months later, when everything had seemed to be going so perfectly for the two of them, the "red" couple reinstated; he had gone and screwed it all up yet again. Although if he was fair, he had no idea how it was his fault. He had just made his mind up over the past years that it must have been. After saying that she would love him forever, he had thought that maybe there could have been a chance for the two of them. But he had let her walk away. Her excuses were weak and feeble, and he knew that the kiss in the library with her best friend was not the reason for their break up.

It could have still been down to the fact that he never saved her. But he had never thought that she needed it. He had always thought that she was the strong one out of their group. The independent one. Maybe that was why her voice had broken when, during their last high school party, she had cried whilst reading the paragraph about herself.

_She was fiercely independent. Brooke Davis. Brilliant and beautiful and brave. In two years she'd grown more than anyone I had ever known. Brooke Davis is going to change the world someday. And I'm not sure that she even knows it._

He had put her on a pedestal with those words. And maybe even Brooke Davis hadn't been able to live up to them.

-b-

That could have been the reason why she shied away from him when her life started sliding away from her.

-b-

_He hadn't seen her in three years. Since the day she had left L.A in order to launch her clothes on New York. Neither him nor Peyton had ever doubted her talent; they just hadn't realised that with newfound fame came the forgetting of old friends. _

_But Peyton had forced him whilst he was up in New York to find her. Apparently, it was only courteous to give her the news by hand. In person. It was just scary how much he was dreading when they would come face to face._

_Knowing that she had kept up with Nathan, Haley and Jamie, it always stung Lucas to think that him and Peyton didn't mean as much to her. He knew that couldn't be true, but it still hurt. Haley had been able to tell him where exactly Brooke would be on the day he visited; coincidentally it being one of her fashion shows._

_From reading the newspapers that were always littered around their apartment, he had found out that these sorts of shows were becoming more and more frequent for Brooke. And so with trepidation (and a pass which Haley had managed to somehow sneak to him), Lucas entered the large doors._

_Everything was red. From the drapes, to the lights and the dresses, it was all their colour. Or her colour, in any case. _

_  
Mesmerised, Lucas let the music take him back in time, as the material flowed around the bodies of the stoic models. Everyone in that room was silent. And he knew, from what he had heard from Haley, that that was not something which happened. People did not stand still at a fashion show. Lost in time, Lucas couldn't comprehend the end until the music stopped and the hundreds of people stood in an ovation at the sights they had seen._

_He stood too, hoping to get a glimpse of the designer and the woman who he had come to see. She stepped unsteadily onto the catwalk and he looked quizzically at her, wondering where the girl he once knew had gone. In her place stood a woman almost the same size as the models who had tread before her, only shorter. She smiled, but he could see no trace of the dimples which he was so accustomed to - a hollow face was the only thing staring blankly out at the crowd._

_She was unhappy, and Lucas could not understand where it had all gone wrong._

-b-

Lucas sat, not knowing how he could move and not relishing the touch of Peyton's hand on his as he once had.

He just stared upwards at her 'stage', for want of a better word, because it wasn't that at all yet she still held the captivated audience's attention.

Silently still and perfectly sculpted, Lucas stared up at her; an unapologetic stare in her direction that she could not object to. At one heart wrenching moment he thought he saw tears streaming down her cheeks, before stopping himself and realising that they were his own.

-b-

"_Brooke."_

_He knew that she recognised his voice because he could see the muscles in her back flinch. Yet it was a few seconds before she would turn around and let him bask in all of her scarlet glory. _

_Not being able to breathe for a second, (because even though her size had diminished, she still had the most amazing body he had ever seen) he dumbly handed over the envelope that he had been thumbing for the past hour._

_Wordlessly, she opened the letter and he desperately tried to scan her face for a reaction as she reached the bottom. But he hadn't wanted the tears to fill her eyes and fall like they did, and his eyes began to water as an instinctive reaction._

"_I'm sorry." He spoke stiffly, and she looked up shocked at him._

"_Don't be." She tried to smile softly. "This was how it was always meant to be. I knew that."_

_Just as he was about to react, a woman turned up out of the blue and hugged Brooke. _

"_I spoke to the guy from the New York Times, he loved it. And Vogue want you. This is everything you wanted and more B. Davis, and you've got it." Brooke tried to react as if this meant everything to her and it seemed to work with the nameless woman, but it wouldn't with him. As Brooke suddenly took off he followed her down a quiet corridor, needing the answer to a question which he wasn't sure if he could ask._

"_Do you still love me?" She stopped calmly, and he didn't understand how the vibrant girl he had once known had turned into somebody so empty._

"_I said I always would, didn't I? I just always knew that I would never be able to have you. You were it for me, I was just never it for you." She tried to smile and was taken once more by a huge group of people, but this time away from him._

_She shrugged as she was dragged off, and he swore that he could see the faintest sign of a dimple on her cheek; the faintest sign that maybe Brooke Davis was still inside that shell._

"_Will you still come?" He mouthed at her and without missing a beat, she replied._

"_I wouldn't miss it."_

-b-

How she could have been so sure he would never know. If she had been marrying somebody else, he was not sure whether he would have been able to cope.

But that was where he still saw the old Brooke inside of her. The girl who could put every other person before herself.

She may not have been invincible like he had once thought, but she was a good person. A girl who had tried to eradicate her mistakes and move on with her life. Because even at that first party she wasn't a terrible person; she had simply been hiding. And over the years she had managed to emerge and show herself to be the kind of person he would never have believed. He would have liked to think that he was partly the reason for why Brooke Davis changed; yet he knew he could not take credit. It was all down to her.

He could however take the blame for her downfall.

-b-

_The plans for the wedding were beautiful. Everything he had imagined the day to be and more were coming true. He had chosen his tux and felt like a Prince; and having chosen her dress, he was sure that Peyton would walk up that aisle as his princess._

_They had chosen the cake, which had been his best day. The two of them had spent one perfect day eating confectionary and choosing different designs, before deciding on a classic tiered cake with the letters 'L' and 'P' upon the top. They had both decided that Peyton's curls would have been far too hard to reconstruct as an iced figure._

_Today was the day that they would choose their location. Well, they had basically already chosen it. The two of them wanted to marry in the place where her parents had wed and where Karen and Keith had planned to. But today was the day that they would find out whether they could have it there. It was the place of their dreams; a quaint little church which suited their understated relationship perfectly. But the priest had warned them that everybody wanted their wedding there. And today was their chance to get it._

_So when his phone rang just before he stopped into the car- the caller id reading Brooke - Lucas was torn._

_Deciding that she deserved him answering, yet hoping she wasn't going to say she couldn't come to the wedding, he pressed the green button. _

_When he had told Peyton that Brooke had said yes, she was ecstatic. The brunette had never stopped being her best friend, and Lucas was sure that one of the reasons his fiancée was so thrilled about the impending nuptials was the imminent arrival of Brooke Davis. It didn't bother him, he couldn't let it, because he knew that Brooke had always meant more to her than he did. Just because they were together now, it didn't mean that he had taken first place in Peyton's life. Brooke would always be first, it was just that Peyton had never been able to stop hurting her best friend. And neither had he._

"_Lucas?"_

_He heard her, yet didn't really focus. He knew that they had to be at the church by three._

"_Uh yeah, what's up Brooke?" He thought he could hear her crying, but brushed it off._

"_I need you Lucas."_

_She was definitely crying. In fact, she was sobbing._

"_Wait, what?"_

"_I've made a mistake Luke, I'm so sorry. But I need you with me."_

_Lucas was worried, yet he didn't let himself feel it. Brooke knew that he was marrying Peyton, so why was she putting him in such a position so close to his wedding? And to be honest, it had hurt when she had let her 'new' friends carry her into the distance in New York, leaving him alone._

"_I'm sorry Brooke, but I have to go. I have something important that I gotta do. Call some of your friends Brooke; ones that you've actually spoken to in the past three years."_

_Her sobs stopped, stepping into place a stony silence. Just as he went to put the phone down, he swore he heard her utter her last words._

"_Nobody ever knew me like you do."_

-b-

It's his turn to see her, and he doesn't know whether he can do it. Being that close to her, feeling all the grief and guilt that he's carrying; he's not sure if he will collapse.

Finally, he lets himself look down at her, and in that moment wishes that he had not pushed for her to be dressed in red. Peyton and Haley were about to dress her in the red bridesmaid outfit she had worn for Haley and Nathan's wedding, but he had refused. That was the day her heart had been broken. He told them that she should be in that very first dress. Shockingly, it still fit her, with just parts needing to be pulled in further.

But now, it jolts him back to his past, and all the moments that she took his breath away. The lipstick she is wearing, which he is already missing, makes him think that she might still open her eyes, might still breathe a single breath out of those ruby red lips.

But to no avail. On the 23rd April, Brooke Davis had accidentally overdosed. She was found just three short hours after she had called him, begging him for help which he did not give.

The fashion world had been in shock for the last eight days, as had the town of Tree Hill. Their darling had been taken. The church which he thought would be used for the happiest day of his life was now being used for the worst.

Everybody had turned up, from all the people that he did know to all the ones that he had never met. Her parents were there, her father crying, and Lucas guiltlessly hoped that they were hurting more than him.

Peyton had already spoken: Of a girl who used to be so full of life, who had given everything to try and keep her P. Sawyer with her. And then Nathan, one of the people nobody realised Brooke had been close to, spoke just a few words; words which brought tears to the entire congregation.

"Now I searched far and wide for something that would describe Davis, but it was so damn hard. She is one of a kind, someone that is never going to be replaced in the hearts of anyone here. But then I found something, and it resonated." He took a deep breath, and then began, bewitching the congregation with his magical words.

"Jack Kerouac one wrote; "The only people for me are the mad ones. The ones that are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say commonplace things, but burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centre light pop and everybody goes "Wow!"

"This is what Davis was to me. The firework which exploded light and excited everybody else's lives. And you know what? In my heart, in all our hearts - that light is never going to burn out."

Lucas still had not returned to his seat, was still stood by her coffin. Realising, as people began to stand that this was the end, he dipped his head and slowly, kissed her red blushed lips.

A single tear slipped down his cheek and dropped onto his lip, as he turned away from his last view of his Brooke Davis.

-b-

Everybody else had left, including Peyton. He had not been sure if he could cope with her still being there. She understood. Although neither of them knew what was going to happen to them now. They both blamed themselves, maybe even each other. How would they ever be able to get past that?

And after what she had told him earlier (about it being her fault that he and Brooke had broken up for the final time), he didn't know whether he would ever be able to look at her again.

Brooke had been wrong with what she had said when they were in New York. It wasn't that she had never been "it" for him, only that he had never chosen who that was. How could he have when he and Brooke never had the chance to try and be together properly, as adults?

All of his firsts had been with her.

First date.

First sex.

First love.

He had never made an embarrassing speech to anybody but her, and he never planned on it.

Lucas may not have been the one to change Brooke Davis but she had certainly changed him for the better. Before her, he was a shy young boy who hid away the talent he had for writing. She had believed in him, brought out his character and let him know that it was okay to have a dream.

Which was why, as he stared down at the freshly buried grave, words began to form in his mind. A manuscript formed with the power of anger, grief and love.

The story of a mermaid who enraptured a man, let him feel everything he never thought he could possibly feel. A story with a tragic end, because after all, a mermaid and a mere mortal could have never lived through their happily ever after. It had never been written in the stars.

_Nobody ever knew me like you do._

In that moment, he knew she was right.

And his world turned red.

-b-

"_A Mermaid found a swimming lad,_

_Picked him for her own,_

_Pressed her body to his body,_

_Laughed; and plunging down_

_Forgot in cruel happiness_

_That even lovers drown."_

-William Butler Yeats.

-b-

fin.

-b-

_So? I don't know if it's believable, I've never written about that subject matter before. But uhh, please tell me if i did it okay?! And if I could write it again without sounding awful. _

_But thanks for reading!!_

_-hannie._


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